Separation When You Don't Want It
A relationship resulting in a separation can be a very painful experience, no matter who wants it, and usually is life-alterating.
Here are a couple of questions from one of our readers that we're sure are on the minds of many other people who are in similar situations...
"What if when you focus on your life, you find that you'd love the company of the other, and their goal is to separate and 'find themselves'? How can you give yourself the gift of another's company when their gift to themselves is to be without your company?"
Separation is hard enough when both people agree on it but harder still when one person wants it and the other person doesn't. Here are a few thoughts adapted from our course "How to Heal Your Broken Heart" that may shed some light on this problem...
After a breakup, separation, or divorce, it’s normal to feel disoriented and at "loose ends" in your life because everything has just been turned upside down--especially when one person wanted the separation and the other one didn't. The question of who you are now depends on you. You have the choice to be a person who clings to the past or the person who is beginning to look to the possibilities of the future. While it’s certainly not easy to go from a painful separation to a thought process of possibilities, this is the work to be done. The fact is—you are a person who can do anything you want with your life if you want to do it badly enough.
The challenge for a lot of people who have gone through a separation is that they have tied their identity to a particular relationship or way of being. You are not that relationship. You are someone who was in a relationship and had a set of experiences. Whether you realize it or not, everything you do in your life and everything you experience is as a result of the beliefs you hold and the choices you make as a result of those beliefs.
Who you are now will be determined almost exclusively by what you believe about who you are now that the separation has happened. The good news is that if you don’t like who you think you are because of the breakup or divorce, you can change it. You or anyone can change the belief you are holding about who you are in light of this one particular event.
The place to begin is to make a list of what you want in your new life and what you want it to look like. Then move toward your new life by allowing it to happen.
Another strategy toward living and loving your life again is to accept the thought that we’re all in relationships to learn and to take some time to learn from what has happened. Take some time and start looking objectively at your relationship that ended.
Ask yourself why this relationship really ended (it may not be what appears on the surface) and then focus on what you learned through this experience. Take your share of responsibility for the relationship breakup without placing blame on you or your partner.
Make a list of all the ways that this relationship or marriage has made you better, stronger, and more capable. In other words, look back at this relationship with new eyes to see how it has served you, even though you may still be in a great deal of pain because of it. No matter how small or large, make a list of all the ways that you are better by being in that relationship.
It might be that you realize that you have grown emotionally in some way. It might be that you realize that you need to do some things differently in your next relationship. There’s always some learning to be grateful for from all your relationships if you look hard enough.
While mourning a relationship that is ending or has ending is natural and necessary, we invite you to not stay stuck there but to begin embracing your new life. Even though it may sound impossible, you can begin to move on and find happiness again.
